Back in August I was the guy arguing for Brett Favre as a top-15 quarterback, so I can't say I'm all that surprised he's doing well. I drafted the Minnesota Vikings quarterback on multiple teams, mainly as a backup due to his draft day value, but now I'm using him over the starters on occasion. The point is, I have nothing against Favre. I wrote about him Monday, dared say something somewhat negative and well
let's just say the readers noticed!
But most readers missed the point. Let's start with this e-mail with a Minnesota address.
Chris Gross (Delano, Minn.): "I recently read your article about Brett Favre being inconsistent this year. I have to say that your analysis is both immature and lacking any real substance. Brett's performance against the Browns was obviously due to shaking the rust off. Give the guy a break, he'd been in town for a few weeks, and was learning his offensive unit. Both the Lions and the Rams were early-season road games. I don't care how bad a team is, playing on the road in the NFL is not easy, even for an aging quarterback. You also forget that the Vikings won those games. Inconsistent? In the NFL, if you want to win, you need to be good on your off days. So far, Brett has been consistent."
Eric: Um, no, he hasn't. Nobody called Favre a bad quarterback in that blog, yet hundreds of Vikings fans like yourself thought I had. These blogs are about fantasy value, not Hall of Fame candidacy or how many real-life games are won or lost this season. The Vikings' winning every week doesn't matter here. Favre has delivered three very nice games with more than 20 fantasy points, but here is his overall log: 8, 14, 18, 22, 11, 23, 9, 25. How is that consistent? We're not talking about whether the Vikings won the game; it's largely irrelevant to fantasy. Aaron Rodgers was the No. 2 player in all of fantasy last season for the 6-10 Packers. Ben Roethlisberger wins Super Bowls, but not fantasy titles (though this year he might!). The word I used was consistent. Favre has followed up only one of his plus-15 point efforts with another. Yes, he's been a top-10 quarterback overall, and he should be given much love for this, especially considering his draft value. The word inconsistent means "not regular or predictable." Was Favre predictable against the Browns, Lions or Rams? Did you expect 47 fantasy points against the Packers over two games? I didn't.
As for your reasoning on why Favre didn't skewer the Browns, I totally agree. Maybe he was rusty, I don't know. And the Lions and Rams games were early in the season. None of that matters one bit. I wrote in the Calvin Johnson blog Tuesday that fantasy owners don't get an asterisk if they have a good explanation for why a player didn't produce big fantasy stats. Only the numbers count here. A fantasy loss is a fantasy loss. Statistically, Favre has been up and down, also known as inconsistent. We just don't know from week to week what he will do, and obviously having the best running back in the league and the occasional gimme game affects his production.
Marshall Moper (Lake City, Fla.): "C'mon Eric. I'll take Donovan McNabb and Brett Favre and their inconsistency over the consistency of Derek Anderson and JaMarcus Russell any day of the week!"
Eric: I didn't think I needed to point this out, but even if a quarterback is inconsistent, it doesn't mean he's bottom-of-the-barrel bad. Favre is still a very valuable fantasy asset, though I have doubts he'll continue at this pace the rest of the way. He might also be sitting out the final week or two since the Vikings could have the NFC Norris division, as Chris Berman calls it, sewn up by Thanksgiving. Anderson and Russell are terrible and shouldn't be playing, so that's not a fair comparison. Let's use Roethlisberger as an example, shall we? Three consecutive weeks leading up to the Favre matchup he delivered precisely 21 fantasy points. He's gone 14, 16, 19, 21, 21, 21 and 11. That's more consistent. It hardly means Roethlisberger owners won more fantasy games than Favre owners did, but it's a point of reference. One of my concerns about Favre is that, in Week 10 against the Lions he'll throw for another 155 yards, but get only one touchdown in an easy blowout win. Well, that's a bad fantasy day, even if Favre didn't actually play badly.
Henry Labard (Vancouver, Wash.): "Eric, Brett Favre's stinkage against these lowly teams is not because of a lack of motivation. It's not because he thinks he had to prove himself against the Packers and Ravens. It's because the games where he's compiled good fantasy numbers have been close games. Just look at the games in which the Vikings have won by two touchdowns or more, Favre put up poor yardage because the team wanted to run the clock! In games that were closer, he threw more and therefore attained more yardage and fantasy points! I can't seem to understand why you didn't look at that in the first place."
Eric: Um, I did. And thank you for explaining it a bit better than I apparently was able to on Monday!
As always, I will be chatting on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET, and trust me, I'll keep the Favre questions to a minimum. Please keep on sending feedback and posting in the Conversation area, but keep the thoughts clean. I'm all for debating issues, and will certainly admit when I am wrong. I'm nothing if not
well, consistent!